Another day, another DeSantis campaign shakeup. This time it was defenestrator Generra Peck who was defenestrated, herself, from campaign manager to “chief campaign strategist,” and replaced by the relatively unknown James Uthmeier, the 35-year-old former chief of staff in the governor’s office, who has never run a campaign. 

What does it all mean? Dysfunction, of course, and perhaps what the press corps has been saying all along, for years: DeSantis isn’t ready for primetime. So much for the hopes and dreams among donors for a no-drama Trump alternative. Incredibly, the third DeSantis reboot is starting to make Trump’s campaign look comparatively drama-free, except for the weekly ritual of fresh indictments.  

Uthmeier, after all, does not espouse the ethos of the normie Never Trumper that donors desire in DeSantis, nor does DeSantis pollster Ryan Tyson, who was also elevated amid the shakeup. Both are “hardcore zealots” and “anti-abortion right wingers,” according to my go-to Florida whisperer Peter Schorsch. According to the National Review, the two engineered the Martha’s Vineyard migrant stunt, among others. But Uthmeier and Tyson are also trusted DeSantis loyalists, as was Peck, suggesting once again that the key qualification to lead the DeSantis campaign is fidelity to Ron and Casey. (Schorsch, who has been working in Tallahassee for decades, offered an additional theory: “They haven’t been able to get national people to sign on, that’s why they signed on a bunch of Florida people.”)